


The Waters of Lethe

by BeastOfTheSea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (gradual), Alternate Universe - Future, Dark Lord!Harry, Gen, Memory Loss, Propaganda, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 08:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeastOfTheSea/pseuds/BeastOfTheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>One day, the Overlord woke up and realized he had quite forgotten his origins.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Waters of Lethe

**Author's Note:**

> **Generic Harry Potter disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

One day, the Overlord woke up and realized he had quite forgotten his origins.

Who was he, really?

He knew the tales that the children were told: his younger years suffering under the lash of the Muggle scourge; his manipulation by the foul Dumbledore; his war against the maleficent Voldemort; his rebellion against the corrupted Light and unification of Magic; his Glorious Revolution, the righteous blitzkrieg against the Muggles with all of the Wizarding world at his back; his shining reign over Earth and all the other worlds to come…

But was it the truth? He did not know; the centuries had eroded his memory, and eternal life had not given him eternal knowledge of the truth. He had ordered the true records purged, during the early days of his conquest, on the Lady Granger’s advice. What had been constructed in their place had been honed to perfection, all inconvenient truths and unpleasant blemishes smoothed away – but what _had_ been those inconvenient truths? He did not know, and had no old friends to which to turn to ask. They had passed on long since, their extended lives failing them. Only he had been chosen to become truly immortal and indestructible. Magic had only given its blessing to one wizard – Merlin (who was Merlin?) knew that he would have gifted it to his friends as well, if he had been given the choice. But he had not.

When he looked at their official portraits, as beautiful as the fey and as noble as gods, he at least retained a foggy feeling that the Lord Weasley had possessed a longer nose, or that the Lady Granger had been a bit bigger-toothed, or that the Lord Longbottom had been rather stouter around the waist…

But he would forget that, in time. He could inscribe it in a diary, but the time would come that he would read the diary and be quite bewildered by why he had said such a thing. His old diaries had already grown unfamiliar; he scrunched up his face at the mention of the first Lunar Revolt, wondering how such a thing could have occurred when the official records gave such a _plausible_ account of why the first century of lunar colonization had been a golden age free of strife and dissent, and tilted his head quizzically at the laughing mentions of how some chance occurrence reminded him of a “Lavender” or “Cho” or “Goyle”. Had they been classmates of his? Aurors? Dissidents? How was he to know?

Had Dumbledore truly been as terrible as he was reputed to be? Some days, when he looked upon a statue of the cackling fiend (meant to frighten sinners and small children into goodness), a faint image flashed before his eyes of a smiling, kindly old man who seemed almost like a grandfather. Other days, bile rose in his throat and the air around him crackled with his fury and deep, longing sadness at an unspeakably ancient betrayal. Which one was the true memory? Had he truly thrown down a demon, or had he slandered and ruined for-ever a well-meaning sage in the name of the greater good?

Was it possible that he had done both?

And what of the man Tom Riddle? He had had a good chunk of England’s Wizarding population at his back – could a deformed, deranged monster really have called them all to him with hatred alone? How could he have commanded such loyalty if he had been nothing but evil, as the legend claimed him to be? He _thought_ that Riddle had been much as he was said to be – but was that a true memory, or had he merely succumbed to his own propaganda?

Could he truly have been a twisted abomination, or had he only been a fellow dissident that the Overlord had turned upon and disposed of when he was no longer of use?

Such fundamental questions of his existence disturbed him. Some days, he would burst out laughing hysterically (and enigmatically, to those around him) at the thought that he did not even know for certain his own _name_. Had he deliberately simplified his original name to get in better with the common man? Or had he complicated it to appear more lofty and mysterious to his followers? Or was the name he used his name in truth?

And what of the years before him? The records were perfectly shaped to show the events of the twentieth century Anno Domini leading up to, and awaiting, his coming. But had Grindelwald truly said to his most trusted followers, “Fear not at my fall; soon will come a greater one than I”? And if that was fabricated, had that been fabricated by _his_ loyalists or by Voldemort’s? Had the young Dumbledore truly written a paper the summer of 1899 A.D. demonstrating that Lords had been growing stronger with every cycle of ascension and decline that occurred, to reach their apex in the coming hundred years – and, if so, had it been for the future Overlord’s benefit, or had Dumbledore intended to cast himself as the Overlord to come? Were even his deceptions his own, or had his greatest deceptions come from failing to credit other deceivers?

What was truth? And ought it to even matter to him?

Perhaps not. But, as of yet, it troubled him…

…And perhaps, in time, he would forget even that it should trouble him at all.


End file.
